What the Blues and Leafs may have been scouting

Équipe: 2019-20 Blues de St-Louis

Date de création initiale: 24 nov. 2019

Publié: 24 nov. 2019

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

-Nylander and Faulk would be the meat and potatoes of the trade. The Blues may be intrigued by having Nylander for their top 6 for zone entries and to play wing with Schwartz and Schenn while Tarasenko is gone. Plus, adding some more speed on the roster definitely wouldn't hurt If that didn't work, they could consider moving Perron onto that line and putting Nylander with O'Reilly, although I'd say this is unlikely because of the chemistry the O'Reilly has developed with Perron.

-They would also be getting Nic Petan for potentially their bottom six and also because rumour has it that he has been on the Leafs trading block for a while (however this might have changed since the firing of Mike Babcock).

-Hutchinson would also be a viable option to backup Binnington, but I'd say its probably more likely that Ville Husso gets called up. Either way, if Jake Allen get moved in the deal, the Blues will probably want a goaltender coming back, and its unlikely that the leafs move Kaskisuo so early on.

-Coming to the Blues, they would get a relatively team friendly deal (in my opinion) coming back in William Nylander. For the most part, the Justin Faulk deal backfired slightly in that his chemistry with the team is obviously not there. This would be somewhat risky however, because the Blues would have to give more ice time to Bortuzzo and Gunnarson or might want to give Igor Oshiganov a chance on the roster. Either option, in my opinion, is viable for this team. The leafs use for Justin Faulk is a no brainer. A team that already has a weak right side on D is losing all but one of their defencemen in this coming off season could really benefit from having a proven guy locked down for the next 7 years. Faulk also is an excellent powerplay quarterback that Dubas might like to add.

-When most people hear Jake Allen they don't get excited but I think he would make a phenomenal backup goaltender for the Leafs. Yes, his contract is a bit steep, but in his last 2 games, he has out up starter-worthy numbers. By adding Allen to their roster, the Leafs get a legitimate NHLer, rather than cycling through American League goalies.

When I first heard that the Leafs and Blues were scouting each other, this is immediately what came to mind and after seeing it on paper, it works quite well with each of their given rosters and cap situations.